Sarah Bradford Quotes

I was born in Breslau on October 5th, 1930. At that time, Breslau, now called Wroclaw, belonged to Germany, and only German was spoken there. After the Second World War, Breslau became Polish, and the original German population was almost completely replaced by a Polish one. I have never visited Wroclaw after the war.

During the Second World War, evacuated to non-Jewish households, I encountered Christianity at home and in school.

First of all, when you live in a country like Canada, it's quite different from America in the sense that it's very tied to traditions that were born in Britain.

My accent does slip. When I arrived in England in 1978 at 18, I was shocked to find myself 'the American' at RADA. The English and the Americans have an intense relationship. They helped us out in the Second World War.

All of my dad's family, his brothers and sisters, my nana and grandad and all of the cousins emigrated to Australia within two years of each other. Irish families are close at the best of times, but when you move to the other side of the world, we were like a big posse over there.

Strong families are vital to strong societies.

Family life is fragmenting in this modern age, but it's up to all of us to keep it together.

Family counts for a lot in this world.

A theme throughout my life has been the intergenerational relationships human beings have.

So much of life's dramas, good and bad, play out against family and so it's really inspiring for any number of stories in all the fields I write in.

I never got to know my grandparents, and I am envious of my friends who have a special relationship with theirs.

Most importantly, I realize the value of the other people - the extended family - the other people within my community, my cultures: my teachers and the other people I call Auntie, Uncle, Godfather, Godbrother, whatever. These are people who pulled you in and made you part of their lives and their homes.

I was brought up by two women: my mother and my grandmother.

I suppose that I just grew up knowing, in a very vivid way, that if it hadn't been for the men who fought in the Second World War, we'd all be living in a very different world now.

My two sisters and I had a very nice nanny at home in Morocco until I was 13. I remember my parents saying how she had insinuated herself into our family. They knew she would suffer when we broke away from her.

It's unimaginable to meet a Pole or a German who does not know about the history of their country. But lots of English people don't know the difference between Britain and England.

Fifty years would seem to be time enough to prepare a definitive history of the Second World War. In an age of instant data-gathering, one might think that the historians could have arrived at a consensus for interpreting the main events of the war. In reality, no such consensus exists.

Each country has its own way of communicating a narrative and, through that, expressing family experiences in emotional stories.

My grandpa was a World War II paratrooper, my uncle a Vietnam Purple Heart recipient, my cousins both Marine Corps officers. I have some very close Navy SEAL connections as well.

I have 18 or 19 first cousins, and we're all very close.

For the most part, having a strong family gets you through anything.

That's been the key to the good success of Monaco - the closeness between the Grimaldi family and the Monegasques.

I wish my grandparents were around to see my children.

Our country vanished from the map of Europe after the attack of the Soviet Union against Poland. That is our history. It is a very difficult one.

Without the railways, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened. I don't actually think the second world war would have happened without them.